Firepower

by John Cutter

  As Vince spoke to Kayson, part of his mind was listening for the sounds of Brethren on the floors above. There were a few still up there. So far, he heard no one coming. “Now head on down the stairs to the first floor, Andy. Slowly. Keep your hands up. Don’t run, or I’ll shoot you dead.”

  Licking his lips, Kayson turned around and started down the stairs.

  As he followed, Vince paused long enough to pick up the Glock and stick it in his waistband. Then he joined Kayson at the bottom of the stairs. First floor, barracks, storage for food and medicine — and the armory. There was a separate stairway to the basement, down a short corridor.

  “Now step on out, and yell at your friends not to shoot you!”

  “I don’t know, they… they’re pretty nervous.”

  “Oh, come on, they’re not stupid enough to shoot one of their Brethren. Go on, or I’ll shoot you myself.”

  Kayson took two deep breaths, then yelled, “Don’t shoot, it’s me, Andy Kayson, I’m coming out!” He stepped out into the hallway — and looked to his left. “Wynn, don’t shoot! I’m a prisoner!”

  Vince stepped to the left side of the door and leaned over just enough to look right. He saw no one down that way. The stairs to the basement were down there, though.

  “Andy, goddamnit, get outta the way!” Wynn Foster’s voice.

  “I can’t — I gotta do what he says!”

  “Good thinking,” Vince said, transferring the shotgun to his left hand. He drew the Desert Eagle with his right, and then stepped out behind Kayson, firing past him with both weapons, the shotgun braced against his left hip, the pistol in his right hand. About forty feet away, Wynn Foster, assault rifle in hand, spun around and fell, his waist on the right side torn off by the shotgun blast as Vince fired three times at the three men behind Foster. The Brethren were wearing armored vests, so Vince aimed at their groins. Their combined screaming was ugly to hear as the big .50 rounds tore through their manhood and the base of their spines.

  Andy Kayson shrieked in terror and ran out the open front door, which was partway between Vince and the men he’d killed —and Kayson was met by a hail of automatic weapons fire as the trigger-nervous Brethren out front reacted.

  “Shit, that was one of ours,” someone said hollowly.

  Vince was already running to the right and through the open door to the separate stairway leading to the basement. He paused at the top, saw no one immediately below. He leaned the shotgun against the wall, reloaded the Desert Eagle and then began to descend the stairs…

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I’m gonna take you outta here and use your ass for bait!” That was Dale French’s voice, coming from the basement corridor. “We got trouble upstairs and you’re going to help!”

  Vince stepped into the corridor and saw French about thirty-five feet off, standing by the open door to a cell.

  Hanging from the door by her wrists — which were tied behind her — was Agent Deirdre Corlin, her face contorted in pain. French had his right hand on the doorknob, his left holding the keys he’d used to open it. He pocketed the keys and reached out to grab hold of her hair.

  “You’d better kill me now or you’ll be fucking sorry,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “That right?” French laughed. “I think there’s time to teach you a lesson…”

  Vince said, “Hello, French.”

  French looked up, startled, let go of the doorknob, put his hand on his holstered Glock.

  Deirdre saw Vince and her eyes got big. “Kill him, Vince! Do it!”

  “Glad to oblige a friend,” Vince said, as French pulled his weapon.

  Vince already had a bead on French’s center-mass. He fired, and French was knocked off his feet by the force of the .50, skidding on his back, yelling in pain.

  French struggled to a sitting position, raised the Glock, and Vince fired again, taking off the top of French’s head from the bridge of his nose on up.

  French’s body flopped back and the Glock clacked on the floor.

  Vince holstered the Desert Eagle, ran to Deirdre, unsheathing his knife. He cut the rope, catching Deirdre in the crook of his left arm to lower her to the floor, and then he cut the knot around her wrists. She groaned as he cut through the plastic ties.

  “Oh god,” she said, tears of relief flowing as she put her hands in front of her. “That hurts too… but what a relief… But… ow.” She leaned over, rocking in place from the pain. “Oh fuck.”

  “Are your arms dislocated?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.” She grimaced, moving her shoulders around. “Some swelling. I think I can use them.”

  “I brought you a gun, if you can hold it.”

  “I’d love a gun, thank you very much. I can deal with it.”

  “Let me lift you up, till we know for sure about your shoulders…” He gripped her just under her ribcage and lifted her to her feet, then stepped back from her.

  “Oh… hurts like a bitch.” She shifted her shoulders again. “They seem in place — but so fucking sore.”

  He held out the Glock, butt first. “You sure you can handle that right now?”

  “Yes…” She took the handgun and hefted it. “Oh yes indeed.”

  “Who’s out there?” shouted a voice from the other cell.

  Vince stepped over to the other cell door. Bobby Destry looked through the barred window at Vince. “Vince Bellator?”

  “That’s right. Hold on, I’ll get you out of there.”

  “Bellator!” someone shouted from up the top of the stairs. “You come out with your hands up, we’ll take you into custody alive!”

  It was Gustafson’s voice, remote, hard to hear. He was shouting from near the front door.

  “I’ll think about it!” Vince shouted. “Give me five minutes!”

  Vince went to French’s body, muttering, “Robbing a lot of corpses today…” as he took the keys from the dead man’s pants pocket.

  He returned to Bobby’s cell, unlocked it, and the young man stepped out. “Oh shit, dude! Is this a dream?”

  “Nope,” Vince said, clapping him on the shoulder. “More of a real messy reality.” He grinned at Bobby. “Your mom sent me!”

  “That’s embarrassing!” Bobby laughed. “But I’m gonna kiss her, first thing when I see her.”

  “First things first. You willing to shoot any of your ex compadres if you have to?”

  “If I have to. Except Shaun. I don’t think I could shoot him.” He looked past Vince at the bloody remains of French. “Um — Shaun’s still alive…isn’t he?”

  “Last I saw of him.” Vince turned to Deirdre who was rubbing her shoulders with her hands. “You okay to move out?”

  “More than ready.” She looked at Bobby. “Good to see you in person.”

  “You guys were talking cell to cell?” Vince asked.

  “Before they hung me up.” She checked the gun over, nodded to herself, and said, “You send that email for me?”

  “I did. No response last time I checked. I tried to get in touch with the FBI on the phone. Couldn’t get anyone to really listen. Just receptionists and voicemail.”

  “Gustafson says he’s got people in the Justice Department…”

  “Yeah, I figured. Also he’s pally with Sheriff Woodbridge.”

  “How are we getting out of here?”

  “First we’re stopping at the armory. See if I can get it open. Then… we’re going up to the heli.”

  “How’d you get into the base? They’ve been watching for you.”

  “I climbed up the east side and took out the emplacements. We should head up to the heli. You think you can still pilot a chopper — even with your arms swollen?”

  “I think so.” She was pale, her face taut from the pain in her shoulders. But she seemed grimly determined.

  Vince nodded and said, “Bobby — pistol or shotgun?”

  “I’m not that good a shot.”

  “Shotgun it is. Come on. Everyone stay q
uiet as possible.”

  Vince led the way to the stairs, leaned through the stairwell door just enough to look up, and saw no one up above. They started slowly up the stairs. He got to the first-floor landing, paused, looked both ways down the hall. Still no one.

  “Bellator!” This time Gustafson’s voice was louder, coming through a bullhorn. “Come on out! We’re not waiting any longer!”

  Vince turned to the others and said in a low voice, “Bobby — you take that shotgun against the wall there. Deirdre — I was told the armory combination is something to do with Kristallnacht. That sound right to you?”

  “I haven’t heard hint-one about the code for that door. Nothing.”

  “Okay — if you two can watch the front door, and just discourage anyone trying to come in, I’m going to try to get into that armory. I’ve got some thoughts about covering our exfil.”

  Deirdre nodded. There was a dark glitter in her eyes.

  I wouldn’t like to be the Brethren who tries to cross her now, Vince thought.

  He watched them move close enough to the door that they could see out. Then he sprinted past the doorway and back through the open space under the airshaft, toward the reinforced steel door of the armory. Someone fired through the front door at him. Then he was at the armory door, which was out of the line of fire from the front. He heard the boom of a shotgun and the crack of the Glock as Bobby and Deirdre engaged in suppressive fire to keep the Brethren from coming through the front door.

  He tried the dates of Kristallnacht on the door’s entry keyboard. He tapped in:

  9101138

  A little red light came on under the keyboard. Wrong passkey. A spate of gunshots came through the front door, cracking into the concrete to his left. One of them ricocheted close by.

  Vince tried the first day of Kristallnacht only, along with the month and year. He tapped in:

  91138

  The little light turned green and the door clicked ajar. A light switched on inside.

  He grinned, swung the heavy steel door wide and rushed into the armory. The room was like an extra-large bank vault, but instead of money, the racks and shelves on the walls were chockablock with ordnance. There were several light machine guns, four FN-SCAR rifles, two old-school collector’s item Tommy guns with the drums on them, a rack of Mossberg 500 tactical shotguns, a row of Uzis, and several boxes of grenades, including flashbangs. On the opposite wall was a rack of AK47s and another of AR-15s. On the floor below them was a mortar with a box of shells and… an RPG launcher with four rocket grenades.

  There were also rows of green-steel ammo boxes.

  The ATF would have a field day in here, he thought.

  Vince selected two frag grenades, two flashbangs, a loaded Tommy gun — and the RPG launcher.

  He heard another exchange of gunfire out front and wondered if he had made the right tactical choices. Suppose after all she’d been through, Deirdre got killed there on the first floor? Maybe they should have run for the heli first thing. But Vince wanted to drive the militia back as far as possible from the base before taking the heli. He put the hand grenades and flashbangs in his pockets, carried the launcher out under one arm, the Tommy gun under the other, set them against the inner wall of the airshaft, just out of line of sight of the Brethren, and ran back for the rocket grenades. He ran into the armory and scooped the rocket grenades up in both arms.

  Keeping under cover of the out-jutting wall of the air shaft, Vince returned to the launcher, bullets screaming past the wall on his right, to smack into the concrete beside the door of the armory. He crouched to load the RPG, then stood up, yelled, “Deirdre, Bobby — what’s your sitrep?”

  “We’re okay,” she shouted. “They’re staying back.”

  “Pull back to the stairs to the roof!”

  “Copy that!”

  He heard them moving back, then he stepped out into the open, aimed the RPG launcher through the open doorway toward the small guard tower on the inner wall of the compound, and fired. The rocket grenade made a whumpf and hissed on its way as Vince stepped back. Though he’d been exposed for only a second, a fusillade of shots smacked into the back wall of the airshaft — then there was a thud of RPG impact, bringing the clattering of metal fragments from the guard tower; shrapnel striking vehicles and outbuildings… and at least one man. Someone screamed piteously.

  Vince scooped up the Tommy gun, exposed his right side just enough to fire it from his hip, and sprayed the entire drum of .45 rounds at the courtyard of the compound, toward every spot where a man could be taking cover.

  Someone cursed. Glass shattered; metal resounded with bullet impacts.

  He stepped back, getting a glimpse of muzzle flashes to the north of one of the outbuildings. He tossed the empty Tommy gun aside, loaded another rocket grenade into the RPG and stepped out to fire it at the muzzle flashes.

  Someone shouted, “RPG!”

  The grenade whooshed, then it struck the corner of the steel building near a group of shooters. A man shrieked, and another, as more shrapnel zinged through the compound.

  Vince loaded another RPG round, then heard a truck engine revving. He glanced around the edge of the wall at the compound to see a big four-wheel-drive pickup roaring right at him. Several Brethren were standing in the back, firing Glocks.

  He swung the RPG out, braced; bullets sizzled past his head as he fired. He stepped quickly back undercover without seeing the rocket strike home.

  But the rocket grenade struck the truck in the center of its grill, stopping it about fifty feet away. When he looked again, he saw an expanding ball of fire, and pieces of truck and humanity flying. Smoke and chaos from the exploded, crumpled truck, so close to the doorway, gave Vince the cover he had hoped for. He reloaded the RPG then bolted from his position, running to the stairs.

  “Come on!” he shouted at Deirdre and Bobby. Carrying the launcher, he started up the stairs. They came after him, and the three of them ran up the metal stairway, flight after flight.

  But partway they had to slow at bodies Vince had left, blood still pattering down the stairs, so they could step over the corpses, and parts of corpses.

  Deirdre glanced down a hallway at the next floor and said, “More of ’em! How many you kill, Vince? Jesus!”

  “Let’s keep moving!” he said, leading the way.

  They kept on, gasping for air by the time they reached the top floor of the bunker complex.

  “Up this ladder,” Vince said, breathing hard. “Oh, wait — Deirdre, can you climb with your arms all kind of…”

  “Yeah, I can climb. It’ll hurt. But so what.” She started up the ladder, grimacing with pain, and climbed through the trap door.

  Vince heard shouts from the stairway below. Unintelligible but urgent. “Go on, Bobby.”

  Bobby Destry put the shotgun’s strap over his shoulder, climbed up and through.

  “Pull the RPG up after you!” Vince called. He handed the loaded launcher up through the trap door and then looked down the stairwell and saw a flight and a half down. A bullet cracked up the stairwell and hit the concrete ceiling above Vince. He stepped back, selected a frag grenade from his pockets, pulled the pin and tossed it down the stairs. Men shouted and ran back down.

  He returned to the ladder and stared up, hearing the explosion and the metallic clattering of grenade shrapnel from the stairs.

  Suppose the heli isn’t fueled up? Vince wondered as he climbed through the hatch, locking it down behind him. But it had to be fueled with Operation Firepower about to happen. Didn’t it?

  “Help me uncover the helicopter, Bobby,” Vince said. “Bring that RPG, leave it by the heli door.” The three of them ran to the heli.

  As Vince unsheathed his knife, he could hear more shouting from down in the compound and a distorted voice on a bullhorn. “Surrender… we will… forced…”

  Vince smiled. They had no notion he was taking the helicopter.

  He cut the lines holding the camouflage netting
and they pulled it off the rotors and fuselage. The rotors were folded down, so nothing got caught, and the heli was soon free. Deirdre climbed the metal roll-up stairs to the hatch. “The damn thing is locked,” she said.

  Vince went up the short flight of steps to the hatch beside her and dug in his pockets. “Hold on, maybe one of these keys…” He tried Marco’s keys — the third one opened the hatch. “I think the other one here’ll start it…” He handed her the keys, tugged the hatch out of the way, and Deirdre went in — stopping just inside the door to stare at the big M134 minigun. It was pulled back on a rail welded into the deck, and locked in place. “What the hell!”

  “Yeah,” Vince said. “They had some plans for that thing. Better get us in the air.”

  She went to the pilot’s seat and put on the helmet with its headset and earphones. Bobby took a seat beside her as Vince brought the RPG in.

  The engine roared to life. “How’s the fuel?” Vince called.

  “Full tank!” Deirdre said, unlocking the rotors.

  The rotor blades unfolded and turned, faster and faster, whipping around, raising dust around the heli. Vince remained standing beside the open hatch; he held the loaded RPG in one hand, holding onto a stanchion with the other.

  The heli lifted up, a little crookedly, but about fifty feet up.

  “Corlin! Take it out over the emplacements and soon as I fire, head east!”

  She veered the chopper out over the near edge of the compound where Vince could see a group of men just outside the gate standing by an SUV. Beyond them, a Humvee was driving away from the compound. It was out of range. But firing downward, he had a pretty good chance of hitting that SUV.

  He triggered the RPG launcher, there came the whumpf and hiss, and the rocket grenade sped down, straight for the SUV. He could see men running — and then the rocket struck the vehicle in the center of its roof. It was hidden by the explosion.

  Deirdre was already accelerating to the east and angling up. Vince tossed the RPG out the door, reached out — with a good grip on the stanchion — and pulled the hatch shut. He went to a seat, buckling in behind Deirdre.